All about ski lifts, tramways and gondolas

The single chair at MRG still has its original towers and terminal structures but everything else was replaced by Doppelmayr CTEC in 2007. As part of that project, towers were removed, sandblasted and repainted before being flown back to new foundations with new line gear. Doppelmayr also replaced the bullwheels, chairs, grips, drive and haul rope. This begs the question of ‘when is an old lift a new lift?’

2. Gatlinburg Sky Lift, Gatlinburg, TN – 1954 Riblet double

Everett Kircher of Boyne fame bought this chairlift from Sugar Bowl, CA for $3,000 in 1954. Originally it was a single chair built in 1939. Modified sheave assemblies were machined at the Kircher’s car dealership in Michigan when the lift went to Tennessee. At some point it appears to have gotten newer-style Riblet towers. Boyne Resorts still operates this lift 800 miles from their nearest ski resort. (edit: JP notes in the comments below that this version was replaced by a Riblet double in 1991. Thanks JP!)

This lift only operates on busy weekends and holidays but it’s an old one and a good one . A classic Pacific Northwest center-pole double with very few modifications from its original design and no safety bars! (edit: Brian notes in the comments that this lift was actually installed as Chair 2 in 1962. The original chair 1 operated 1955-1994.)

Chair one at White Pass lives on despite an adjacent high speed quad.

4. Mountain Platter, Burke Mountain, VT – 1956 Poma platter

This lift has a strange history; it was shortened in the 1960’s and then lengthened with a turn added in 1983. There aren’t too many 4,800′ platters left out there like it. The platter is practically underneath a brand new Leitner-Poma detachable quad.

5. Chair 1, Mt. Spokane, WA – 1956 Riblet double

Spokane was the home of Riblet Tramway Company for more than a hundred years so it’s only fitting that the local ski area has five Riblet doubles in pretty much original form. The oldest is Chair 1 which was built in 1955 but not finished until 1956.

Kelly Canyon actually used this Riblet lift as a template to fabricate a homemade version right alongside it when more capacity was needed. Riblet never sold this ski area another lift although it now has a second (genuine) Riblet double which came from Vail.

Kelly Canyon’s main lift still spinning after nearly 60 years.

7. Snowdon Poma, Killington, VT – 1958 Poma platter

This surface lift was one of two original lifts at the Beast of the East which now has 20 lifts. It’s more than 2,200 feet long and still operates despite being sandwiched between a newer triple and quad chair.

8. Banff Gondola, Banff, AB – 1959 Bell 4-passenger bi-cable gondola

Garaventa did a bunch of work on the Banff Gondola in 1997 which included new carriages and 40 new CWA X cabins. This is actually the third set of cabins on this gondola. Unlike most of the lifts on this list, the Banff Gondola operates all year long. I would not be surprised to see a completely new gondola built in the next few years at this major destination.

9. #3/Bateau, Sugarloaf, ME – 1959 1956 Constam T-Bar

North America’s oldest T-Bar is a throwback.

Like all of these lifts, #3 T-Bar has some newer components, namely Leitner springbox T’s. It cost $57,000 to build and sixty years later is sometimes the only lift Sugarloaf can open on windy days.

This lift has a newer Riblet overhead drive-tension terminal but the towers and top terminal are original from 1960. In fact, five of ten lifts on this list are Riblet doubles which can clearly stand the test of time.

Having skied / ran races / ski patrolled there, and asked about its history its er… murky. Apparently the 1953 date is accurate, and it was built after ‘careful study’ of other lifts. Its got some very very interesting design features, and is the only chair I genuinely feared for loss of life through exposure . (its as low as -40 operating and VERY exposed). The new owners for last couple of years have at least I understand worked on the operational and safety side. Its for sure still going to be running this season still.

Lake City, CO platter lift was originally installed at A-Basin in the 1940’s at some point, but records are scarce. It was moved to Lake City, shortened and reinstalled. Much of the structural steel has 1944 markings from PA steel mills.

Re: White pass lift. Chair # 1 (pictured) was actually built as chair # 2 around 1962 and installed parallel to the original chair # 1, (1955) which was removed when the adjacent high speed quad was installed. The original lift had only one “erector set” type tower, the rest were “modern” tubular style.

I think the Gallery chair (another reliable Riblet double) at Summit Central (Ski Acres), Snoqualmie is a 1962 or 63. I had a newspaper article talking about it once and have seen photos of it from the early 60s. It was the third chairlift built on Snoqualmie Pass. In the 2000s they rarely ran it but after Boyne bought the areas they started to run it almost as frequently as Holiday.

I decided to do a bunch of math to calculate how long a Riblet lasts compared to the average automobile. So let’s say a Riblet lift was built in 1960, operated from 8am – 4pm, for half a year. We can assume that it’s going to be down for maintenance about 5 days that year, and that’ll simplify it so we can just say the Riblet operates for 180 days a year. 8 hours a day, 180 days a year means that Riblet is operating about 1440 hours per season. Since it’s 2019 we’re close enough that we can say that the Riblet is 60 years old. 1440 x 60 gets us at a total of 86,400 hours of operation. Let’s convert this into car terms. Using a database of the average speed of driving in different cities, the average driving speed for an American is 30.224 mph. So if we were to say that the Riblet was putting on 30.224 “miles” per hour, we can get an estimate on how high an odometer would be for operating 86,400 hours. Doing that math, we can see that the Riblet’s supposed odometer would read 2,611,353.6 miles. Already that’s a pretty big number. The average life of a car lasts roughly 150,000 miles or 8 years. Going by miles, the Riblet lasts 17.41x longer than the car, and 7.5x longer by age. So what can we take away from this? Riblets are reliable af and I have too much free time.

One more thing, a car operating as much as a Riblet would reach 150,000 miles after just 3.52 years. Seeing that the average car life is 150,000 in 8 years, the Riblet is working 2.27 times as hard as the car and still lasts 17.41x longer.